Intro Main Text

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Hi, this is AJ Hoge, Director of the Effortless English Club. Welcome to our new set of

lessons, these are called the Power English Lessons. The reason they’re called Power

English is because in these lessons we’re going to do two things. Number one, you’re

going to learn English, of course. As always, we have the mini‑stories which are our

favorite lessons for most of our members, but the content, the focus, the topics in these

lessons are going to be focused on the psychology of learning and the psychology of

success.

Now these ideas, they’re not just my ideas. In fact, they come from a lot of other

people. They come from people like Tony Robbins, who is a famous success coach,

Robert Anton Wilson, Joe Vitale, Robert Kiyosaki, Alan Watt, so I’ve taken a lot of ideas

from a lot of different people about this topic of the psychology of success. And the

reason that we’re going to talk about this in these lessons is that in my experience, most

English students struggle and fail because of psychology, not because of methods, not

because of teachers.

Those things are important, but Tony Robbins talks about the fact that psychology is

80% of success. And I think he’s right, based on my experience with many, many

English students. Psychology is 80% of success, so 20% are the methods you use to

study. 20% are the schools you go to, the teachers you have, the books you use.

Those are important, we talk a lot about them. But the other 80% is psychology, your

motivation, your emotions, how you manage your time. All of these things are in fact

much, much more important.

What I saw in my classes were that the enthusiastic students, the energetic students,

the optimistic students always learned much faster. They succeeded. The ones who

failed, the ones who dropped out and quit, the ones who struggled had the opposite

mentality. They had a very negative mentality. Their motivation was low. They tended

to be pessimistic. They felt that they weren’t good at English. They had ideas that

English was very tough, very difficult, they struggled. They didn’t have enthusiasm for

English. They didn’t love English.

So in these lessons we’re going to talk about how can you manage your emotions. How

can you develop that strong, powerful, enthusiastic attitude towards English, how can

you maintain it so that you don’t get bored? So that in fact you get stronger and

stronger with English and your psychology gets stronger and you succeed, you reach

your goals. You speak fluently, effortlessly. So among teachers, English teachers,

language teachers, this topic is called Non-Linguistic Factors. Non‑Linguistic Factors.

So what “Non‑Linguistic Factors” means is things that are not related to language

learning directly. When we talk about language learning research, when we talk about

the best methods to use when you learn English, those are linguistic factors, right?

They are related to the language. Non‑linguistic factors means not related to the

language. This has nothing to do with English, it’s more about psychology. Motivation,

for example, is a non‑linguistic factor. So all it really means is just emotional factors.

And there are actually many research studies about this topic.

Dr. Stephen Krashen down in Los Angeles, probably again the expert in language

acquisition and language learning, has done many studies and he has also looked at

many studies and he’s found that non‑linguistic factors are equally or in fact more

important than the linguistic factors to determine who is successful ultimately. What that

means is that things like your emotions, things like your peer group, the community that

you belong to, your feelings about English are as important or more important than the

methods you’re using to learn English.

So how are we going to do this? How are we going to learn? Well, one of the things we

have to do is create a daily English ritual. You need to engage your physiology. That

means you need to engage and use your body. You need to engage and use your

subconscious. That’s how you start to affect and strengthen your psychology. So we

have to strengthen our psychology, what does that mean? Really it means affecting

your body and your mind at the same time, so that you actually feel better. Your

emotions are happier while you’re learning English. And I know this is the opposite of

what you learned in school.

You probably didn’t feel very happy when you were sitting in your English classes. But

when you’re learning with Effortless English, it’s very important for you to feel happy.

For your body to feel good, for your mind to feel good. For you to emotionally enjoy the

process of learning English. Of course, it’s just more fun, you’re going to like it a lot

better. But the other benefit is that you actually will learn faster. You’ll improve your

grammar faster, you’ll improve your pronunciation faster. You’ll remember vocabulary

words better, longer and faster when you feel good. So there’s a very practical reason

for doing this, too.

So we’re going to talk a lot in detail in these lessons about how to do this. But just right

now, during this introduction, let’s talk a little bit about a daily plan. Something you

could do immediately, right now, today, to start improving your success with English by

changing your psychology. So here’s a little ritual, a little plan you can follow every day

to start improving, to start feeling better and therefore improve your motivation and to

learn English faster and faster and faster, better and better and better. And it’s very

simple.

So the first thing you’re going to do is when you get up in the morning, the first part of

this plan, this daily plan. You want to get into a peak emotional state. Peak means top.

For example, the top of a mountain, when we talk about a top of a mountain, the very

top we call the peak. So we’re saying a peak emotional state means a top emotional

state or top emotional feeling. It means you want to feel great. Not just good, you want

to feel really great. That’s the first thing you need to do before you listen to any English

lessons. Before you study you want to first be sure that you feel great.

How can you do it? Well, it’s really easy. I recommend, for example, using music. And

I actually do this myself in the morning, most mornings. I will put on some great,

exciting music that I love, jump around, act like a crazy person, and get myself feeling

energetic and happy. Do that first before you listen. So move your body, smile. We’re

going to talk about this more in detail in later lessons. But just for now, every morning

when you get up first put on some music. Some energetic, happy music that you like,

smile, move around. Do that for maybe 5 minutes, maybe 10 minutes. Then when

you’re feeling really great, your body is moving, you feel like you have energy, you’re

happy, then start your English lessons.

The first thing you want to listen to is the main article, the main audio. So the first thing

is listen to the main talk. And you can read this as well the first time if you cannot

understand easily, you can read the transcript and listen at the same time. Do this

perhaps two times per day, starting with the main story and reading. Use a dictionary if

you need to to look up new words.

Next, listen to the vocabulary. So in the vocabulary again I will discuss the meanings of

some of the difficult words that I used. And again, you can read the transcript of that

vocabulary lesson. There’s always a transcript you can read if you can’t understand my

speaking, if I’m too fast, then read at the same time. It’s okay.

Next, you’ll listen to the mini‑story and the mini‑story is the most important lesson. The

mini‑story is designed for deep learning. In the mini‑story I am going to ask a lot of very

easy questions while I tell a story. In fact I really ask the story, I don’t tell the story. Why

am I doing this? Students ask me “Why are the questions so easy?” Well, the

questions are supposed to be easy because I want you to answer fast and

automatically. I want you to train your brain, teach your brain to answer very quickly.

I don’t want you to translate from your language to English or from English to your

language. It’s a bad habit, it will make you speak very slowly. I want you to just answer

quickly, automatically, very fast. So that’s why I ask so many questions, like questions

again, again, again, again, again…very easy. Your job…answer the questions quickly.

You can answer with only one or two words, its okay. Short answers are fine. You don’t

need to answer with a big, long sentence. In fact, short is better.

So that’s the order that you’re going to follow. You’re going to listen to the main article

first, one or two times. You can read as well if you need to. Then you’re going to listen

to the vocabulary one or two times, each day. And then finally you’re going to listen to

the mini‑story, one or two times or more. You can also read the transcript for the

mini‑story in the beginning.

Now another important point, when you’re listening to these lessons do not study them.

Don’t struggle to memorize. Just relax and listen. If necessary, you can read as well,

as I said if you need to. But relax, you’re not trying to memorize anything. Just let it

come in. Let the English come into your ears and into your eyes. Don’t think about it.

Don’t analyze it. Do not think about grammar. The mini‑stories will help you learn

grammar subconsciously, so don’t interrupt that process by trying to analyze it. Don’t

think about grammar rules.

You want to learn like a native speaker and that means you’re going to learn the

patterns of English in these mini‑stories. You might not be able to explain them, just like

native speakers cannot explain grammar rules. But that’s okay, you want to be able to

use them correctly. That’s the important part. So again, you want to relax. Do not

study. Do not think about grammar rules. Do not try to translate. Just relax and listen.

That’s why we call it Effortless English. It should be effortless. You should be smiling,

relaxed and just listening.

Now another important point. You want to move your body while you’re listening to the

lessons. This will keep your energy high. So, what do I mean by that? Well, a really

easy way to do this is just to walk. You’ve got an iPod, you’ve got your earphones in,

listen to the lessons while you go for a walk. You can do two things at one time. You

exercise, you improve your body and you listen to English lessons and improve your

mind at the same time.

If you’re sitting in a train, then maybe you just stretch your body a little bit. If you’re in

your car, you can move a little bit. You can move around in your seat. If you’re at your

house you can go crazy, you can jump around. You can exercise very strongly. You

can go to the gym. Do something with your body while you’re listening to the lessons.

It will keep your energy high. It will keep you feeling better. You will actually learn faster

by doing that.

And finally, a very, very important point. You need to use our deep learning method.

That means you listen to each lesson set for one week or more. So for example, this

introduction has got three parts. There is a main lecture, a main talk. There is a

vocabulary section. And there is a mini‑story. Well those three, you want to listen to

those three every day for seven days. You want that repetition.

Repetition is very important. You want it to go deeply into your brain. Just one time is

not enough. Even if it is very easy for you, if you listen you understand everything, it’s

simple, still follow the deep learning method. Still listen to the whole set for one week or

more. On the other hand, if it seems very difficult, listen longer. Two weeks is okay.

Doesn’t matter, the point is you want it to go very deeply into your brain which means

you want it to be almost effortless. It’s going to just go into your brain and eventually

just come out without you thinking and that requires deep learning. It requires a lot of

repetition.

So that’s kind of your basic plan for using these lessons. Again, first you’re going to get

into a peak state. You’re going to get excited. You’re going to jump around. You’re

going to listen to music. You’re going to feel great. Then you’re going to listen to the

main lecture, the main audio, one or two times. Then you’re going to listen to the

vocabulary, one or two times. Then you’re going to listen to the mini‑story, one, two,

three, four, five times…every day. And remember, relax, feel good and enjoy the

lessons while you listen.

Okay, that is it for our main section for this introduction. Next is the vocabulary.